Three-quarters of Americans say democracy in this country is under serious threat. To be sure, the goings-on in Washington don't inspire much confidence that the American experiment will prevail.
But there's reason for hope in how the nation is educating its youngest citizens in democratic values. Even preschools are teaching those values to kids ages 3 to 5, through creative exercises that capture what it means to vote. Local and national media alike have started paying attention to these preschools, because the kids aren't just telegenic, they're also the most enthusiastic voters in the country.
Voting on 'PAW Patrol,' breakfast shows kids how their vote counts
In Annandale, Virginia, preschoolers at the ACCA Child Development Center held a vote to decide the best character in the animated series "PAW Patrol."
The spirited balloting ended in a tie between Chase, an athletic German Shepherd police dog, and Skye, a flying cockapoo. A teacher explained to a reporter that the exercise teaches the children that their voice “counts.”
At Detroit Country Day School in Michigan, where a large classroom drawing bore the slogan “I vote, you vote,” preschoolers voted on the theme of their play area: auto repair shop versus pet shop. Teachers held a voter registration and set up curtained voting booths (“Vote Here”), which the preschoolers entered one at a time to cast their ballots. Pet shop won in a landslide.
Preschoolers at Clayton Early Learning in Denver voted on breakfast options after first sampling the candidates: a granola bar and the landslide winner, a strawberry croissant.
“This is a great way to get them introduced to those core values we as a country believe in,” the school’s president explained to a television reporter.
One tousle-haired child offered, “If you don’t make a choice, somebody else will take your choice.”
The children reacted the same way each time the results were announced: the winning side cheered, while some on the losing side looked disappointed, even glum. They are learning the core concept of democracy, the glue that holds it together: Everyone gets a vote, and everyone accepts the outcome. It matters because lessons from preschool and early education tend to stick, the way learning to clean up after activities or zip up a jacket without help does.
Valuing American democracy starts in grade school
Kathryn Haushalter, who lives in rural Michigan, witnessed the failure of a fledgling democracy firsthand when she served in Afghanistan as a Marine on a female engagement team. She made this same point about staying power to a podcast interviewer who asked whether Afghanistan had changed her view of American democracy.
If anything, she said, it made her value American democracy more. In Afghanistan, she explained, democracy was never “seeded” in the culture: “They didn’t grow up that way. ... Even in grade school, you know, I remember voting on certain things. ... Do we want to go outside for recess today, or stay inside? It’s just ingrained from very young, about fairness and voting. ... Maybe you didn’t get your way this time, but try to convince your friends, and next time you can. You know, we grow up that way.”
More than a century ago, John Dewey, the great American educational reformer, argued that “democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”
That renewal is happening right now, in the nation’s preschools, and it’s reason for real confidence in democracy’s future in America. We grow up that way.
Gregory J. Wallance, a writer and former federal prosecutor, is the author of five books, including, most recently, “Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Don't worry about democracy. The preschoolers will save it. | Opinion
